False Smile
by insertappropropriatenamehere
Summary: AU In an age where humans and fae struggle continuously, one person ends up on the wrong side and must traverse layers of deceit and falsehood to find out the truth to both himself and to the war. Chapter 1 edited.
1. Chapter 1

On the ground I lay motionless in pain  
I can see my life flashing before my eyes  
Dead I fall asleep, is this all a dream  
Wake me up, I'm living a nightmare

I will not die  
(I will not die)  
I will survive

I will not die, I'll wait here for you  
I feel alive, when you're beside me  
I will not die, I'll wait here for you  
In my time of dying

On this bed I lay, losing everything  
I can see my life passing me by  
Was it all too much or just not enough  
Wake me up, I'm living a nightmare

I will not die  
(I will not die)  
I will survive

I will not die, I'll wait here for you  
I feel alive, when you're beside me  
I will not die, I'll wait here for you  
In my time of dying

I will not die, I'll wait here for you  
I feel alive, when you're beside me  
I will not die, I'll wait here for you  
In my time of dying

I will not die, I'll wait here for you  
I feel alive, when you're beside me  
I will not die, I'll wait here for you  
In my time of dying

~`*'~

Chapter 1: Incitement

~`*'~

Long ago, the Holy Britannian Empire grew vastly, encompassing new lands. However, they were not wary of the dangers lurking in their acquisitions and soon encountered the fae. The greatest of the fae were concentrated at the city of Avalon, hidden within the far reaches of the enormous forests stretching across the land, and they took poorly to the invasion. Soon, war erupted between the fae and the humans, as each side sought to destroy the others. The fae created the Sidhe, the Hunters, and in reciprocity the Britannians created the Knights, the elite of which consisted the twelve Knights of the Round. Eventually, an uneasy peace developed around complicated codes of behavior appeasing the other side and the ability of the Sidhe, with their wild magic, to match the Knights, with the power of the Geass. Warfare was limited to the Sidhe and the Knights, and whatever poor fools broke the unofficial laws governing the peace.

In this hostile environment, a queen of unknown background gave birth to an unusual purple-eyed child. Ten years later, she died, and that child joined the Knights.

~`*'~

Lelouch vi Britannia, eleventh prince of the Holy Britannian Empire, the current Knight of Two, and the only one without a supporting team, ran. Behind him, the hellhounds bayed. In front of him, the forest gave way to a clearing. He stopped dead as he saw the two fair figures barring his way. He turned to flee, but his escape was cut off by his pursuers. Cursing, he brought his hand up to his left eye.

"Your cursed Geass of Absolute Obedience will not help you now," the Sidhe on the left called out. No- he wasn't a Sidhe. He was a mage of some sort. Lelouch could feel the power the fae exhuded and wished he were anywhere but here; the next time a friend asked him to take on a dangerous mission without giving him the details, he would refuse.

"You're not Sidhe," he shot back, confused. "Why are you interfering?"

The one on the left pointed somewhere behind Lelouch. "We are not Sidhe, that is true, but neither is your pursuer. We are here to take you out of this war. Look closely."

_Damn you- _Lelouch turned, and the last thing he saw was a woman with short red hair.

~`*'~

Suzaku frowned. "What do you mean he's missing?" he demanded.

Luciano Bradley shifted uncomfortably; an angry Knight of Seven was dangerous, as he had found out to his detriment when the Honorary Britannian- a person who had gained the peerage within his lifetime with his own deeds- had first joined the Knights. "I asked him to help me on a mission. Halfway through, we were separated, and we never found him. All we found was traces of Sidhe magic. If you want, I'll send Marika with the details."

Suzaku paused, then nodded sharply, once. He and Lelouch had been close friends ever since Lelouch had been a lonely prince among many and Suzaku had been just another commoner's brat. "You realize His Majesty will be upset?"

"You intend to search for him?" Bradley asked in obvious shock. Then he shrugged. "Well, best of luck to you."

Suzaku didn't deign to honor that with a reply as he strode away briskly. Instead, he pondered how he would have to break the news to Gino and Anya; it would be better for them to hear from him than from cruel Court gossip.

~`*'~

Six months later, they had all given up the search. Even if Lelouch was alive, he would have come back right now. If he couldn't come back, then arguably he and they were better off not meeting.

Still, as Suzaku walked by a lordling with a stake in certain illegal business practices concerning unmissed orphans and beggars taken from the streets of the imperial capital Pendragon and with naïve, nubile young women from his own home estates, he couldn't help but wish Lelouch were still here. The Knight of Two had possessed an incredible mind and a ruthless attitude. He, Jeremiah, and Rolo were heading off toward their next mission in the newly colonized Area 11 when a flash of violet and black caught his eye.

Habit took over, and his mouth bypassed his brain. "Lelouch?" he blurted out, but saw no one. On instinct alone, he ran off into the crowd, closely followed by Jeremiah and Rolo, into the labyrinthine network of alleys and crowded tenements that constituted most of Pendragon's slums. The stench of unwashed human hit his nose; here, even the garbage and human refuse was of value and so would not be lying around.

Frightened people moved out of Suzaku's way as he barreled down alleys, one hand on his sword hilt, the pose signifying he was on official business, the white uniform his profession as a Knight, and his long, formal blue cloak his position in the Rounds.

There! A flash of violet-black caught his attention; he darted into a small alley, tracking it. It was a blind alley. There would be no escape there.

"Lelouch?" The hooded, androgynous figure he had been chasing ran its hands against the wall lightly in despair. Almost surreally, Suzaku moved forward to ascertain its identity; he ignored the sound of Jeremiah and Rolo pounding up behind him.

The figure backed away from him, flattening itself against the wall behind it as if to melt into the very stones. It wouldn't get very far; with the presence of the Knights, this section of the slums would be virtually deserted until they left. The hood fell off, and Suzaku sucked in a breath; that was definitely Lelouch's face staring back at him, dirty and pale and thin and framed by a curtain of long, matted hair, but the expression of naked fear, confusion, and despair mirrored in brilliant violet eyes was not one Suzaku had ever thought he'd see his friend make.

"Look, I won't hurt you-" Suzaku didn't get any further, since Lelouch took that precise moment to drop into a dead faint, likely from sheer stress and exhaustion. Suzaku picked him up, almost surprised at how little his friend weighed. "What have you been doing for the past half year and what's happened to you?"

Later, as he, Jeremiah, Rolo, Gino, and Anya sat huddled around a fireplace in the antechamber to the bedroom where Lelouch currently rested, their mission delegated to another team, he related his story.

"-and I think he's lost his memory," Suzaku explained.

Jeremiah frowned. "If he has, then it might be due to Sidhe tampering, although why they decided to just leave him alone after catching him I have no idea. It's not their method to do so."

"It could also be dangerous to use Geass on him, to try to nullify the Sidhe magic on him," Gino mused. "We could end up destroying his memories permanently."

"That would be bad," Anya said rather unnecessarily, not looking up from where she sat, sharpening her favorite long, wickedly curved knife.

"Then what should we do?" Suzaku whispered. "The way he is now, he could be dangerous, to himself if not to us." The sound of breaking glass in the other room punctuated his words.

When they went to check what had happened, they found a broken window and a trail of blood leading from an empty room. The uniform Suzaku had set out for him was gone as well.

Rolo summed it up best; "Well, shit."

~`*'~

He ran, heart pounding, back to the only place he called home. Easily, he slipped into the shadows. Who was that Knight who had chased him? Why? He wasn't Sidhe, was he? Some kind of fae? An old enemy from before he'd lost his memories?

He didn't see the man standing in front of him and careened straight into him. Horrified, he dropped to his knees.

"I'm sorry about this, my lord," he whispered. If he was careful, he probably could avoid being punished too badly. "I didn't know any-"

Baron Kewell Soresi lifted him up by his hair and backhanded him easily. He hissed as sharp metal rings cut into his skin. "Never forget your position, guttersnipe. You have caused me enough trouble today- Lord Kururugi, Sir Gottwald, Sir Haliburton!"

"Baron Soresi, what are you doing, may I inquire?"

"He is just some-" Kewell began, shoving him away. He took the implied command and scurried toward the seedy manse he called home.

"You know he is nothing of the sort," Suzaku interrupted.

"You cannot prove-" Kewell began again. "Lord Gottwald?"

The Geass shone in Jeremiah's left eye. "My power is that of Absolute Nullification. If that truly is the Knight of Two with tampered memories, then I can see to check if it is true."

Rolo sighed, but did nothing. There was only this one chance to prove that this was truly Lelouch, even if there was the risk of triggering a delayed magical trap.

He was almost at the door when a red barrier overtook him. For a moment there was nothing but pain, and then his memories began flooding back.

"_Kuso,"_ he whispered in the secret language his mother had taught him.

"Lelouch?" that was Suzaku's voice. "Is that you?"

"I am Lelouch vi Britannia, eleventh prince of the Holy Britannian Empire and the most likely still the current Knight of Two. Who else would I be?" he demanded sardonically.

"Identity is relative." Instantly on alert, Lelouch looked up; the two fae who had crept up behind him six months ago stood on the edge of the building, as if their precarious position mattered not.

"What do you mean by that?" he shot back, desperately wishing he still had a weapon even as the other Knights drew theirs. With a soft twinge of pain, the Geass manifested in his left eye once more. It had become permanent before he'd lost his memories, and likely was again.

"More than you could guess right now," the fae on the left murmured. He had short blue-green hair and wore the characteristic black-and-grey uniform of the Sidhe. "Our orders were to keep you out of the war, but it appears that is no longer a viable option."

Lelouch backed up, wishing he had at least kept himself in better physical shape. As it was, the two Sidhe could probably defeat him no matter what. Automatically, the other Knights surged forward to protect him and Kewell, the two noncombatants. "What do you want with me? And why me?"

"That's not important right now." The Sidhe on the right was suddenly in front of him, a hand covering his Geass in his left eye and short indigo hair danced in his vision. "Sleep."

For the second time in far too short a period, Lelouch dropped like a stone, unconscious and cursing _stupid fae magic-_

~`*'~

Suzaku could barely restrain himself from crying. They were back in their room, each dreading the thought of having to inform the Emperor of the loss of his beloved son again. The first time had been traumatizing enough.

"It was our fault," Jeremiah whispered. "And now Lelouch is..."

"The Sidhe won't give him back," Rolo agreed dully. "Not at any cost."

"Why him, though, and not the rest of us?" Gino asked, picking at a tear in his uniform.

"His mother," Anya stated. The entire room stared at her.

"_What?" _

"I was a part of the imperial Court before I became a Knight. Like you were, Gino, except I actually participated. During that time, I knew Lelouch. Often, the Court would gossip about his mother, the Empress Marianne. For a woman to come out of nowhere and catch the attention of the Emperor, it was a highly unusual feat. Some called her a witch, many questioned her loyalty, but she was a member of the Knights of the Round and was Bismarck's predecessor."

"Bismarck," Suzaku echoed. "The Knight of One, Lord Bismarck Waldstein?"

"That one," Anya confirmed. Her inflection never changed, even as she flipped through her journal. "They said that the Lady Marianne was indistinguishable from the Sidhe when she fought, and that none could defeat her. No one knew her Geass- she never needed it."

They all sat in silence for a while as they digested that fact.

"He never spoke about her," Gino finally ventured. "Even I didn't know."

"You're the younger son of an influential noble, so you trained as a Knight from the beginning. You were never really a part of Court gossip," Rolo pointed out reasonably. Considering his temper and insane dedication to Lelouch, Suzaku wouldn't have been surprised to see him preparing for a solo attack on the Sidhe right now. "And the rest of us aren't nobly born. Except Jeremiah, but his family are country nobles. They aren't a part of Court, so it doesn't matter."

Suzaku slumped over and stared at the cheerfully crackling fire, wondering where it had all gone terribly, terribly wrong.

~`*'~

This time, when he woke up, he had the benefit of retaining his memories. _Not that that's much help here_, he mused drowsily. A soft, unfamiliar scent brought him awake as he realized his situation.

Shocked eyes glided over a richly apportioned chamber; Lelouch sat up in the middle of an enormous canopied bed, surrounded by rose colored wallpaper and heavy, ornate cherrywood furniture. Even the bedding was sumptuous, in contrast to his own rather battered clothing; with a start, he realized he was still wearing one of his old uniforms. He would have to thank Suzaku for that, even if he was pretty sure he was wearing his socks inside out.

He could almost feel the age his surroundings exhuded. It was only after a second examination of the room that he realized there was no door, no other aperture. How-

Sidhe magic, of course. What else? Fighting off panic- if the Sidhe wanted him dead, he wouldn't have woken up in the first place- he took a deep breath and concentrated on his next course of action.

Here in this stiflingly ornate room, there was no sense of passing time other than by the steady beat his heart, the quiet breaths he took. It was completely silent; there was nowhere for sound to enter.

"What do you want from me?!" he screamed out in frustration. As expected, there was no reply. There was only him and that damned, eternal silence.

Very well, then. If they wouldn't let him out, he'd get himself out, one way or another. Closing his eyes, he lay back once more and concentrated on sensing the fae's wild magic. To his surprise, it was almost everywhere, imbued in the walls of the room, permeating the very air he breathed. It formed the fabric of the room, keeping him in and everything else out, keeping the room in a state of pristine, timeless preservation. It was a forceful, constant pulse in the back of his mind, clashing painfully with the Geass manifested in his left eye.

Surely they hadn't put up this much security just for him. This was a fae stronghold. He also wouldn't be able to simply smash through the walls with physical force alone, and the Geass did not work on inanimate objects. His captors could simply wait until he died, of one reason or another. The suggestion that they were testing him never even crossed his mind.

"Air," he whispered. How much air had he used up, and how much did he have left? Was there some kind of ventilation to this room, magical or mundane? Why him? The Sidhe generally reserved their worst punishments to those Knights who had actually killed the fae in cold blood. He had never done so, instead preferring to merely beat them back or take them as prisoners of war. Outside of Britannia, the trade in fae as slaves ran briskly, both because of their wild magic so unlike the regimented, limited magics practiced by humans and because of their odd, exotic beauty.

He had no weapons. From the looks of things, they hadn't searched him. But then again, after living for six months in a cheap, seedy brothel in the middle of the slums, he probably smelled terrible; he had long since learned to ignore such odors. For a moment, he contemplated his hands. They were grimy, calloused, blunt nails broken. Would it be better for him to wait and try to outlast whatever the fae were planning and hope for some sort of rescue, as unlikely as that was, or for him to simply end it all? He'd learned how to. It would be easy, so easy.

His contemplations were interrupted by the whisper of magic used, and he looked up to see the male Sidhe from before.

"What do you want?" he was in no mood to be polite.

"_No, what do you want?"_ the Sidhe replied coolly. Lelouch flinched.

"_How do you know this language? Tell me!" _

"_This is the language of the fae. Did your mother teach it to you when you were young? She was right in doing so." _

"_What are you talking about?"_ His mother had connections to the fae? Another thought popped into his head. _Those rumors were true?_

"_That, and your other questions, will be answered as soon as you figure out a way to leave this room." _The Sidhe vanished.

Lelouch snarled, casting vicious glances at the wall. He wasn't fae- there shouldn't be any way for him to exit the room.

Sooner or later, the need to exit the room would become overwhelming- he only hoped that he wouldn't go insane then.

~`*'~

Kallen frowned. _"Is that true?" _she demanded. _"That Marianne married the human Emperor? How could she? She was- was-" _

Sugiyama gave a tired sigh. _"I don't know. And I don't think this Knight is any different. He feels human. He acts human. He _smells_ human. How strange, that we have come to depend on him." _

Kallen frowned. _"Don't forget, Marianne was the greatest of the Sidhe. It is only right that her son repays her debt in her stead." _

Minami walked in. _"This is all layer upon layer of plotting. Even I know not what the end goal is." _

As if on cue, the heavy, fiery pressure of pure fae magic pressed down upon them, clawing at their own magic. For a moment, the glamours all of them kept to create a human appearance fell, revealing them in all their true glory. Some of them, at least. Most still looked almost perfectly human.

"That was-" Kallen began, and then they joined the rush to see the perpetrator of that magic.

~`*'~

Lelouch could feel the tattoo at the base of his throat beating in time to his pulse. Whenever he touched it, he could feel the flesh there, burning, and his Geass would flicker, just a tiny bit, momentarily. It was beginning to hurt to breathe, that tattoo sending flashes of pain every time he drew in a breath.

Odd. He'd never noticed any marks there, much less anything so obviously deliberately done. But he could feel it now, even if he couldn't see it, some kind of insignia, resembling a pair of wings. His vision was blurring, and that ache at the base of his throat was spreading. He could almost hear something whispering into his ear, and it hurt to breathe but he couldn't stop.

Then something snapped, and he grasped the power that he'd been missing all his life and fell out of the room, swallowed up by blackness and the faint impression of feathers brushing against his skin and the soft humming of his mother's voice.

~`*'~

The pain was gone. That was his first impression. The next was of many concerned faces leaning over him, except now he could almost see through the human façade they put up and into their true features. Then he saw their clothing.

Sidhe. Every one of them. He forced his body upright and into some semblance of a defensive pose, one hand automatically dipping toward his belt for a weapon he didn't have.

Almost instantly, he faced an entire row of silver blades as the Sidhe followed their own training.

"What an unfortunate first encounter, Knight of Two." Lelouch straightened, consciously preventing himself from leaning against the wall in exhaustion. "Here, you must never forget about that uniform you wear and its impact on the Sidhe. Remember that we can kill you at any time if you prove too recalcitrant."

"Who are you?" The words came out as a croak. _Recalcitrant... _

The Sidhe surveyed him. _"You may call me Kyoshiro Tohdoh. I am the leader of the Sidhe." _

"_Why am I here?"_

Tohdoh gave him an almost pitying look. _"Politics and war. Come with me. I will acquaint you with your new situation." _

Hating every moment of it, Lelouch knelt, signifying his surrender and obedience, then followed the fae out the first door he had seen since his arrival.

~`*'~

Tsuzuku?


	2. Chapter 2

Running to unknown

feeling far lost, without sight

sealing loneliness inside and denying it.

I am someone going to meet the void

(who is) not afraid of being dominated

Desiring dazzing to change everything.

Where are you going forgiving nobody?

Darkness is born from light

Truth shakes lies

(and) Pierces hearts

Facing the freezing night

I'll continue to call the shadow of desire called dream

and to believe in your pain and guilty

Your whisperering voice (which) says 'I want everything'

Without bothering about what you may loose

Does not want to notice the cold ahead.

If there is some love left, let it be in your lips

lead light into darkness

let warmth get over

the feeling of doubt.

Swear to exchange your feelings

craving it's roots forever

before it fades away.

Darkness is born from light

Truth shakes lies

(and) Pierces hearts

Facing the freezing night

I'll continue to call the shadow of desire called dream

and to believe in your pain and guilty

-Trust and Doubt

~`*'~

Chapter 2: Memories of a Forgotten Past

~`*'~

"Hey, I heard that one of the Britannian princes is becoming a Knight," Gino gossiped. Long blond hair caught in a pony tail bobbed as he pulled it back from where it threatened to fall onto his food.

Suzaku frowned. "It's probably just another spoiled princeling," he answered harshly.

"Aww, are you still mad that Anya and I managed to beat you at practice today?" Gino teased easily, unperturbed by Suzaku's brusqueness.

Suzaku gave him a glare just as the crowded, normally noisy cafeteria fell silent. A glance at the door told him why.

"That's not just another princeling," Anya noticed.

"That's the eleventh prince," Gino hissed. "He's something like third in line for the throne!"

Suzaku couldn't see the other's face, hidden as it was by a curtain of black hair cropped shorter than was fashionable, but the posture of the thin body draped in the gray of the uniform of the Knight trainees spoke of elegant refinement and quiet fury. "He looks ten!"

"That's our age," Anya muttered, writing something down in her journal.

Suzaku was so busy staring he didn't notice much else until that body was almost right in front of his face.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" Despite the phrasing, Suzaku doubted that was a question. Even if the other were not a prince, there were few empty spots in the cafeteria.

Dark green eyes met royal purple ones. _He looks like a girl_. Suzaku banished that thought immediately. "Sure."

"You know, you should be polite to him," a man with odd blue hair and orange eyes spoke up as he and another woman with platinum hair and dark skin took their seats beside the prince.

"And I told you I wanted to be treated as just another person," the prince said dully, poking at his stew. Something greenish and lumpy floated to the surface. "Is that supposed to be a potato?"

The woman leaned over, morbidly amused. "Probably- Your Highness."

"Ah, we forgot to introduce ourselves." The smile on the man's face was definitely predatory. "I am Jeremiah Gottwald, the kid next to me is Lelouch vi Britannia, and the lady to our left is Villetta Nu. Pleased to meet you."

"I am Gino Weinberg, Mr. Grumpypants next to me is Suzaku Kururugi, and the girl to our left- your right?- is Anya Alstreim."

"Isn't 'Suzaku' a fae name?" Villetta asked.

Suzaku scowled, the remants of his good mood vanishing. "My mother was insanely obsessed," he grumbled.

"My mother also had no naming sense," the prince agreed. "Who names their child 'suspicious'?"

Gino snorted in laughter. "You're serious?"

"It's Gallic."

"Right then, Mr. Sus- um, Your Highness-"

"Jeremiah, stop glaring at Gino. You're scaring him off."

"Yes, Your Highness!"

"And stop calling me that!"

"Your Highness!"

"You're just teasing me now, aren't you?"

"No, Your Highness," Villetta deadpanned before the group broke out into laughter. _Well_, Suzaku mused, _maybe it won't be so bad after all_.

~`*'~

The prince was unfit. Hideously unfit. Unfit almost to the point of ridiculousness. He was last in every physical exercise that they participated in, yet he persisted.

"Seriously, why do you even bother?" he asked Lelouch as the prince bent over double, gasping for breath. No one else looked even remotely winded, Suzaku least of all.

"I… hate… you…"

"For being in shape?" Suzaku took a ridiculous bowing pose. "Whatever pleases Your Highness."

A light push sent him flying down a steep incline. "Don't call me that!"

A hand helped him up; Suzaku looked up into Jeremiah's orange eyes. "His Highness would not be here if he did not show the prerequisite talent," the man said. "Villetta and I follow him for a reason."

A few minutes later, Suzaku found out that whatever the prince lacked in physical prowess, he made up for in spades in everything else. His aim was almost perfect with many ranged weapons, he could use a sword, spear, and knife with enough proficiency and speed to force his opponent to surrender nine times out of ten, and he was frighteningly intelligent.

Currently, they all watched as Andreas Darlton, already in his last year of training, was buried under a rockslide Suzaku suspected Lelouch of purposely starting. As Darlton struggled to dig himself out, the prince darted behind him and held a blade to his neck.

"Surrender."

"I surrender," Darlton gasped, sweat coursing down his face. The prince's remained expressionless as he helped Darlton out of his trap. "You're the hardest opponent I've fought in a long time. I pity the Sidhe who end up on the wrong end our your blade."

The instructor's voice broke the class out of its awed reverie; Andreas was one of the best, with a chance of entering the Rounds. The newbie had defeated him almost as if he were playing with the older trainee, luring him into traps and forcing him to give up his advantages. "Alright, Claudius Darlton, Marielle Reverie, you're up!"

The trainees all made way for the prince in their midst, who took no notice of the whispers behind his back.

"Good job," Suzaku offered lamely as Lelouch reached their spot and sat down. Was that his imagination or did relief flash through the prince's eyes?

"Thank you." That phrase hadn't been meant for any other to hear, and Suzaku took it to heart. Maybe this new trainee, for all his frightening intelligence and odd quirks, wouldn't be too bad.

~`*'~

VV was much, much older than he seemed. So was CC, his female counterpart. Honestly, Suzaku merely thought that they were both messed up in the head.

"Alright," CC began, "Who understands the Geass?"

Lelouch was the only one who raised his hand. "The Geass allows the Knights to fight on an even footing with the Sidhe," he spoke quietly. "It's a power that is innate, instinctive, but will not manifest itself unless given the proper conditions, and it manifests differently for each person. The Geass will often have limitations upon usage, most likely imposed by the mind as a sort of moral restraining bolt or to keep the user from going insane with the power."

CC nodded. "Thank you," she replied formally. "The Geass is why VV and I are here. We are specially trained to bring out the Geass in people. Before you leave this class, you will all have to deal with new powers. I'm warning you; there are consequences for this power, which is why everyone here is in their final year of training. We hope you have the maturity to not abuse the Geass. Now, we'll start."

Afterwards, they had compared Geasses, pale birdlike symbols floating in irises tinted pink. Suzaku noticed how much the Geass complimented Lelouch's natural purple, unlike the way it clashed with everyone else's eye color, especially his.

Lelouch. Jeremiah. Suzaku. Gino. Anya. Villetta. Absolute Obedience. Absolute Nullification. Absolute Illusion. Absolute Emotion. Absolute Emptiness. Absolute Trust. Those were their Geasses. How fitting, the way they matched each's personality and preferences.

"We will become the best, and we will remain friends," Gino swore, solemn for once.

"_Nakama_," Lelouch pronounced. At everyone else's stares, he clarified. "It's a word my mother taught me before she died. It means 'those who are the best of friends, closer than even family'."

"We will be _nakama_ forever," Gino swore. They all agreed. There was nothing spectacular, nothing pompous, and yet, that had been the first time their bonds had truly been cemented together.

~`*'~

"We're graduating we're graduating were graduating weregraduatinweregraduating!" Gino sang, holding up his new, blindingly white uniform. Thankfully, their cloaks were of various types of camouflage dye.

Rolo, who wouldn't be due to graduate for another year, gave an envious sigh.

"White moves first," Lelouch murmured morbidly.

"What?" Suzaku was caught off guard.

"It's a chess motif," Lelouch explained. "We wear white, the Sidhe wear black. We instigated this war, we chase them down, they retaliate. It's fitting."

Suzaku eyed the prince, who was already in uniform. "White makes you look peaky. How come you're not tanned, even though you've spent as much time out practicing as the rest of us?"

Lelouch smoothed down the front of his uniform, the white fabric of his waistcoat whispering silkily under his fingers. He eyed his white trousers, black boots, and black turtleneck with the emblem of the Knights emblazoned in silver critically in the mirror as well before turning to Suzaku. "Enjoy this chance to look pretty," he murmured. "It'll be dirty out in the field."

"As if we needed a reminder," Jeremiah snorted, smoothing out his own uniform. He and Villeta, both five years older than Lelouch and Suzaku, six years older than Gino and Rolo, and seven years older than Anya, had been dating steadily since they'd made the pact after gaining the Geass. "At least we can now use our Geass without fear of retribution."

Rolo sighed. "I'll miss you guys next year."

"Don't worry," Anya said, ink threatening to splatter over her own uniform. "We'll be back when we're not on missions."

"We're not stupid enough to die," Gino reassured, flipping three long, thin braids over his shoulder; he had cut the rest of his hair short just that morning. It was wavy, Suzaku noticed, the ends curling up into his face and away from his neckline. He'd never noticed. It was odd to see a Gino with short hair, miniature braids or no.

"We're going to be late," Lelouch scolded as he virtually shoved Gino into his uniform.

"And you're turning into a mother hen," Gino joked, and the entire congregation broke out into smiles and chuckles, stress at an end to a chapter of their lives fading away as they created and stored away happy memories of halcyon days.

~`*'~

Their first hunt, and they were failing miserably. The Sidhe in question should have been merely a single average grunt, but instead they had run into an entire Hunt, almost fifty strong, including Sidhe known to have taken scores of Knights' lives. The demi-immortals had not been happy, but once they had seen the size of their group, they had left. Suzaku was having a terrible time tracking them down.

"It's almost as if they're running away," he snarled, frustrated. "I don't understand! At their level, they could have killed all of us without batting an eye!"

"Maybe it was His Highness here," Jeremiah joked.

"Don't call me that," Lelouch sounded resigned. "Why don't we split? Then we'd have an easier time finding them. I'll take Jeremiah and Villetta, and you go with Gino and Anya; we'll track the Hunt while you bring backup."

"Alright," Suzaku said, uneasy with the thought of splitting up their party.

In the end, despite their efforts, they never caught up to the Hunt, nor did they manage to guess why the Sidhe had left instead of fought.

"Maybe 'twas Yur Hihgness," Jeremiah slurred. As soon as they had returned to a place that sold alcohol of any sort, they had all gotten completely, stinking drunk.

Suzaku threw the empty bottle at him and took a fiery gulp from his own cup; their first mission had been a complete disappointment. "More."

"Agreed," Lelouch hiccupped, staring at the empty bottle desolately.

~`*'~

Despite the fact that the Sidhe seemed wary of them, they inevitably got into fights, this time one with some fae who were new to the Wild Hunt; they flaunted their status in one of the few mixed human-fae towns along the border. It had been almost ridiculously easy for the Knights to find them.

By this time, despite their less-than-stellar track record, Gino and Lelouch had made it to top positions as Knights due to the strength of their Geass and their skills against the fae, and there was talk of promotion to the Rounds soon. The Sidhe had not been the only ones to take losses; out of their entire graduating group that year, almost a quarter were out of commission, one way or another. Most were gone, dead at the Sidhe's hands or taken captive for some unfathomable reason, but some were still around, maimed or injured or just without enough willpower to remain fighting.

_Strange, how the top of our class all congregated into one group_, he mused. It was that way every year, and this year had obviously been exceptional. Ahead, he could hear Gino humming a soft, zesty tune to himself. His Emotion was already at work, making the Sidhe rash and impatient, and drawing the ire of most of the town's other patrons upon their heads.

Six Knights. Seven Sidhe. _Really,_ Suzaku thought patronizingly, _they won't even know what hit them._

Soon enough, seven figures strode into view, the black and grey of their uniforms blending into the dark, foggy streets. Of course, it wasn't foggy; that was Suzaku's own Illusion at work, blinding the populace and the Sidhe but not the Knights themselves. Especially not Lelouch, who had planned this entire operation. Suzaku really needed to stop being so obsessed with the prince. It was unhealthy of him.

The actual fight, if it could be called that, was swift enough; Villetta's Trust joined with Gino's to bring down the Sidhe's defenses, Anya's Emptiness destroyed their senses, alienating them from their surroundings, Jeremiah's Nullification stopped the defensive spell one of the Sidhe had managed to begin, and Lelouch's Absolute Obedience bound them to his will with the simple command, "Obey me."

Suzaku mused that, with Rolo's Absolute Suspension, they would truly be invinicible. The power to stop people's perception of time would be useful in numerous circumstances, despite the time limit it placed on Rolo due to its unfortunate side effect of also stopping his heart.

"Let's go back," Lelouch suggested. "We can meet up with the collections team on the way there, and I don't want to be late for Rolo's graduation."

Two weeks later, Rolo Haliburton became a Knight and joined their ranks. Lelouch left to work on his own, claiming that he'd figured out that for some reason, the Sidhe were avoiding him.

"It's probably my Geass," he'd joked, but Suzaku couldn't help but feel as if something were about to go horribly, horribly wrong.

~`*'~

The next time they'd been able to meet as a group had been almost a year later, when he and Suzaku were fifteen. Suzaku had taken command of the others, and they often took more than one assignment at a time. Lelouch remained alone; no one was quite sure of his movements except that he occasionally handed over Sidhe to the collections teams and even more rarely showed up to pick up assignments before vanishing.

Therefore, when they'd happened to meet coincidentally in a seedy tavern in some hick town a few days' travel from Pendragon, both sides, having recently finished all missions, had agreed to travel to the nearest chapter and update each other on their situations.

It turned out Lelouch had mostly been lying low, staying at the very edge of the Britannian border to avoid undue attention, and had been recalled due to familial matters.

"We've been doing the same," Suzaku admitted. "Why do you look better off than the rest of us?"

Lelouch sneezed, then winced. "I just manage to get hit where it doesn't show."

"No alcohol then," Jeremiah admonished, replacing his former liege's cup with his own empty one.

A few tables away, Gino had started a hilariously inappropriate drinking game; including him, everyone else participating was completely drunk. Villetta and Rolo were in the middle of the crowd, and Anya was cradling her wet diary forlornly; the ink would have run, and the poor fool who had dared ruin it would probably wake up feeling sore in all the wrong places. Jeremiah eyed the proceedings enviously. "It sounds fun. I think I'll join them."

And then Suzaku was left alone with a man he hadn't stopped thinking about since they'd separated.

"Umm," he began.

"Hmm?" Lelouch's left eye, his Geass, was hidden behind an eyepatch now.

"Did your Geass evolve?" Suzaku blurted out quietly. A nod was his only answer. "How?"

"It was an accident. I'd caught up with this Sidhe who could use wind magic, and he almost took out my eye with this spell, and I got mad and just- snapped, I guess."

"What happened?" Suzaku couldn't help but feel morbidly interested.

"I screamed something. I don't really remember what happened next, but by the time the wind had died down the Sidhe wasn't there." Lelouch shuddered and looked down at the rough wood of the table. "I- I think that-" And then Suzaku was there, hugging him reassuringly, and they didn't need words anymore as Lelouch let out his fear, desperation, and anger.

~`*'~

"I hereby appoint you, Suzaku Kururugi, as the Knight of Seven," the Emperor boomed. Lelouch had inherited the man's deep, commanding voice, Suzaku noticed as he took back his sword and turned to stand in front of the crowd.

Gino, Anya, and Lelouch, standing in formation with the rest of the Knights of the Round, the gold emblem embroidered onto their shirts separating from the ordinary Knights clapped enthusiastically; Lelouch had been the first to join the Knights of the Round, then Anya, then Gino, and now Suzaku. He sent a quick, exhilarated smile at them.

The only downside to this was that they could no longer work as a team; the Knights of the Round generally led teams of their own, and there was never more than two of them per team. In the morning, Suzaku would go recruiting for new members and hope the people he got weren't entirely bad.

Still, tonight was his moment of triumph, and Lelouch and Anya's horror tales of Court aside, he was going to enjoy it, dammit!

After celebrations had begun- Suzaku only noticed the change because the people began talking to each other, there was none of that camaderie and rowdiness that marked the "commoners'" parties- Lelouch and Gino came by to congratulate him, insinuating themselves out of their respective gaggles of fangirls.

"Now what?" Suzaku asked as they headed toward a fairly empty corner of the enormous room. "Do we have to mingle with the crowd or something?"

Gino shrugged, pointing to one of the servers laden with trays of delicacies. "Only if you want to. Hey, is that pie I see there? Be right back."

"Is it just me or are our friends trying to get us together?" Suzaku asked jokingly as they took their seats along the wall.

"They're definitely trying," Lelouch said, his voice very dry. A servant headed their way, but a shake of Lelouch's head sent him off in a different direction. "Do you think they'll succeed?"

"I like women," Suzaku shot back. "Maybe if you changed equipment-" Lelouch punched him.

"Don't even think about it, pervert." Suzaku fell silent.

The rest of the night, they sat there, side by side, acknowledging each other's presence and watching gaily dressed dancers flit by like a flock of gaudy butterflies. They were left alone, and Suzaku couldn't remember a time he had been happier.

~`*'~

They were good memories, all of them. Now, as Lelouch lay, naked, floating in a body of water, staring at the starlit sky, buoyed up by the current of an unfamiliar magic that separated him from his _nakama_, he couldn't stop the tears the coursed down his face, mingling with the fresh, sweet water surrounding him.

In years to come there would be legends of how a lonely prince, torn away from his friends, imbued the water with his sorrow and despair and loss, until it became sweet and bitter at the same time, a pool of memories best left untouched.

~`*'~

Tsuzuku?


	3. Chapter 3

There you go throwing stones  
This is how you want to end up  
Take your life, precious lie  
You're not even worth defending  
I know your out there laughing  
Its time to disappear  
And I know your hearts are empty  
And the end is drawing near

It's just what you wanted  
To be Dead and dishonest  
So just let it take you  
Cause it's sad what it's come to

Take it in, breathe it in  
Even though your lungs can't stand it  
Push it out breath it out  
You know they're waiting open handed  
And I could never tell you the things you want to hear  
What your about to go through  
will force you through your fear

And it's just what you wanted  
To be dead and dishonest  
So just let it take you  
Cause it's sad what it's come to

And it's just what you wanted  
To be dead and dishonest  
So just let it take you  
Cause it's sad what it's come to

- Legends Die, Bleed The Dream

~`*'~

Chapter 3: Not Too Late

~`*'~

No one knew what the Sidhe did to the Knights they caught, but everyone knew of the results from those few Knights the Sidhe returned to them, dumped over the border, every year. Suzaku shuddered, remembering blank, vacant, Geassless eyes and stiff movements, unquestioning obedience and lack of any will whatsoever.

If that was what Lelouch would return as, Suzaku would slit his throat himself. He wasn't the only one; any of the others would have done it, to spare the ignominy of others' knowing what had happened to the prince.

With a gasp, Lelouch woke up to dark, stifling air. He carefully reached across and pulled back a curtain, stumbling out of bed. That hadn't been the first glimpse he'd gotten of his friends while sleeping since his incarceration, but it had been the most vivid. And why Suzaku? Why was he always looking from Suzaku's eyes?

The Geass fluttered in his eye, straining to be free, but there was nothing he could use it on in here. It had been sealed ever since he'd woken up that first time.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to focus on _leaving_. There was no response. He couldn't exit this room, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't contact his friends, and he had no idea what was going on outside. This was just like the other time he'd been trapped in this room, only now they didn't want him out, and there were safeguards to prevent his leaving.

Lelouch cursed, and out of pure spite, kicked the wall. So far, everything in this room had been impervious to damage. His foot rebounded with a hollow thud, and then he was slamming into the wall with his fists, trying blindly to force his way out. _"Let me out!"_

As always, there was no answer. He gave up and slumped over, staring at that damned rose wallpaper and trying not to cry.

~`*'~

The next time he could leave the room, he didn't bother trying to escape. He had no way of knowing where he was in relation to his chosen destination, he didn't think Britannia would take news of his fae magic very well, and it just wasn't worth it. He sometimes suspected that the Sidhe were using mental coercions of some sort to keep him apathetic and obedient, but there was no proof and he wasn't about to drive himself insane over what could be nothing.

A month ago he would have lambasted himself for giving up so easily, but a month ago he hadn't been ensconced in the heart of a fae stronghold, surrounded by battle-happy Sidhe.

"You're that Knight." Nagisa Chiba tucked a stray strand of short brown hair behind her ear.

"Yes?" Lelouch replied sarcastically. "I wasn't aware that those who aren't Knights also enjoyed your hospitality." Then he turned around. "I saw you. You were on that Hunt."

Chiba frowned sharply. "Follow me."

Wondering why, Lelouch did as told; the Sidhe's manner brooked no argument. "Wha-"

If the Britannians had been selling the Sidhe off as exotic chattel, then the fae had been reciprocating the behavior with captured Knights. There were at least fifty Knights laboring endlessly in a mine and in an adjacent forge, all situated at the bottom of a perfectly bowl-shaped, round pit. There was no way short of magic for the Knights to leave.

"Our magic does not work well with iron and many other metals," Chiba's voice cut through his haze of shock. "Yet we still need weapons that match the Britannians'."

"You put too much emphasis on your magic, that is all," Lelouch couldn't help but sneer. "Humans only know how to work that metal through practice."

Chiba shook her head. "That's where you're wrong. Unlike you humans, the magic is almost as a fifth limb. Might as well ask us to do it with one hand tied behind our backs."

"Like I said, you put too much emphasis on your magic," Lelouch repeated patiently. "Someday, the magic will fail you, or you won't have enough, or, like now, you won't be able to use it. And then you'll truly be crippled without it."

A swift movement in the corner of his eye was the only warning he got before Chiba backhanded him. "Do not presume to understand our ways."

"Then don't try to mock ours," Lelouch hissed.

"Typical hypocritical human."

"You're too close-minded."

Chiba gave a hysterical laugh. "The magic is an integral part of us. Without it, we would be no different from you humans."

"I fail to see how terrible that is." This time, the Sidhe punched him in the solar plexus before wrapping her fingers around his throat. The Geass in his eye strained to be free.

"_If you think so poorly of us, why don't you join your country men down in that pit!"_

"It's called a mine," he shot back. "Stop proving your own ignorance." In response, the fingers around his neck tightened painfully, and his knees buckled.

"_Stop,"_ an imposing male fae barked, walking up. _"Nagisa-san, don't antagonize him. He makes valid points, no matter how harsh they are to face. _You, Knight, stop antagonizing my Hunt. They'll tear you to pieces without second thought."

"_Who is the one giving you your orders?" _Lelouch asked flatly.

"_You speak our language!"_ the look on the fae's face was vaguely flattering.

"_It's generally considered rude among humans for people to start talking at each other before they've introduced themselves. For the record, I am-" _

The fae snorted. _"Name one fae in this fortress who does not know who you are and I will show you someone so out of touch with the world it's hopeless. You are Lelouch vi Britannia, Knight of Two. I am Tohdoh Kyoshiro, Kyoshiro Tohdoh in Britannian nomenclature, the head of the Hunt known as the Black Knights. The direct antithesis to your white Knights, I suppose. Chiba was supposed to keep you and your influence _away_ from other humans. In the meantime, please return to your room."_

Once, the knowledge of his enemy's identity as a Sidhe would have made an impact. Now, as he couldn't do anything, he refused to rise to the bait. For an instant, Lelouch considered overtly disobeying the Sidhe's orders, but a closer look at the implacable expression on Tohdoh's face discouraged him. He focused on his room at the Knights' Pendragon chapter and _pulled-_

The next moment, he was flat on his back, staring at treetops and cloudy sky.

"_Do you want to kill yourself, fool?!"_ Tohdoh was yelling, panicked, in his face. Somehow, Lelouch couldn't muster up enough strength to care, one way or another. The Sidhe's words were fading in and out of his vision. _"You should know that the distance you bend is equal to the amount of energy spent, and that you don't have enough nearly enough reserves to bend half that distance! Especially not after you've been depending on those reserves to sustain yourself for the past month and a half, and you've never had time to really build them up in the first place! Or do you just not care!"_

Lelouch's vision did that tunnel thing again, and as his head lolled back he could have sworn he saw Suzaku staring at him from behind a tree at the edge of a clearing he was in. "You never told me," he croaked. "Anything." Was that really Suzaku? "Suzaku…"

He though that he heard Tohdoh screaming at him to stay with him- a stupid proposition, since he needed to return to his _nakama_, and in any case he wasn't intereted in the Sidhe. Nakama…. Almost subconsciously, he reached for that image of his room and began to _pull_.

~`*'~

"Hey, Suzaku, did you seriously think we wouldn't be together, all of us?" he teased, watching as Suzaku stroked the black velvet of his formal cloak, fascinated by the material. "We promised, didn't we?"

Suzaku smiled at him. "Of course."

Lelouch began laughing, and soon everyone else had joined in. For an instant, they were in perfect harmony, all seven of them.

~`*'~

When he woke up, for the first time since his arrival, he felt exhausted. His bones ached, his muscles ached, his head hurt, and he didn't dare try to open his eyes. He couldn't even move. Instead, he simply lay there, gasping for breath. He was back in that room he hated again.

This time, he wasn't alone.

"_You need to stop being foolish, vi Britannia." _

"_Toh…doh…" _

The Sidhe brushed hair out of Lelouch's face, nothing in the motion betraying anything of kindness or care. _"Stay awake, and I'll help you eat something. It'll help you regain your strength." _

"_I'm… not…" _

"_Don't be foolish."_ Tohdoh propped him up and held a warm spoon to his lips. Lelouch opened his mouth to protest, and the Sidhe shoved it in, dumped its contents in his mouth, and pulled it out. _"You have absolutely no reserves left in anything but stubbornness. Now eat, or we'll all have to deal with the trouble of burying your corpse." _

This was wrong. Lelouch could feel it. Suzaku was the only one who could see him like this, exhausted after a particularly grueling hunt or after his Geass took its toll on his body yet again for its usage. He tried to spit whatever he was eating out, but his body wouldn't obey him and swallowed instead.

"_We can do this the nice way, or I can force you to recover,"_ Tohdoh's voice was serene.

"_Suzaku,"_ Lelouch moaned desperately. _So there were coercions to corral my thoughts. And now my actions. _

"_If you die, you won't see any of your nakama again," _Tohdoh continued. _"I'm guessing that includes this Suzaku you keep talking about."_

He'd broken the primary rule, that no captured Knight would speak of his comrades lest the Sidhe target them next, but that soup, whatever was in it, was beginning to look more interesting….

He only hoped Suzaku would understand when he returned…

~`*'~

Suzaku was _not_ in an understanding mood. "How could you just let that happen?" he snarled for the umpteenth time at his fellow Knight. "You're a Rounds member!"

"Calm down, Suzaku," Dorothea Ernst, the Knight of Four and technically Suzaku's superior, shushed, firmly pulling him away from the Knight of Ten.

Said Knight looked up in fury. "It wasn't my bloody fault," Bradley hissed, clutching his bleeding nose. "I thought he'd be fine since he's been on plenty of solo missions-"

"But to not even tell him your objective?!" Suzaku asked, outraged.

"Hey, I didn't want to scare him away, okay? He'd have been scared if I told him we were going after that particular Sidhe."

"Who was that Sidhe?" Suzaku asked more calmly than he felt. Bradley obviously took the hinted threat.

"I- I can't tell you."

"Were you working with it?" Luciano hung his head.

"I can't believe it," Suzaku whispered. "Why?"

Luciano only shook his head. Suzaku grabbed the front of his shirt. "_WHY?!_"

"I'm sorry! They said they wouldn't hurt him, that they were just checking something out!"

Suzaku felt cold. "You just believed them. Just like that. You, a Knight, and a Knight of the Round at that." In the background, Dorothea called for guards, but Suzaku ignored her. "I am going to kill you when all of this is over."

Soft, crazed laughter emanated from the Knight of Ten. "You won't have to." Suzaku caught the hint of fae magic emanating from the Knight. "Don't activate your Geass!" Even so, he was thrown across the room by the force of an explosion large enough to wipe chunks out from the walls.

"Wha-?" he slurred, dragging himself out of the rubble; he'd bitten his tongue. A few junior Knights came up to help, but he waved them away. "No Geass yet. Not till they make sure everything is final."

For a second, he could almost see Lelouch standing there, wearing the uniform of the Sidhe, raven feathers hidden in his hair, a cold, cruel smile gracing his face, one hand stretched out in supplication. "I think I have a concussion," he announced blearily to the man who was helping him- Gino, his mind claimed.

"Then stay awake," Gino cautioned. Anya was beside him; she'd gotten a new journal and was now writing into it at a high speed. "If you fall asleep, you might _never_ wake up."

"That… would be… bad…" The world was getting fuzzy, and he was so tired. With an enormous effort, he dragged himself back awake.

"Lelouch," Anya announced. Suzaku automatically went on alert.

"Lelouch?"

"Lelouch."

"What… about him?" Suzaku wrenched his head over to look at her.

"He'll be upset if you never wake up."

"Where… is… Lelouch?" Lelouch wouldn't leave him behind, right?

"I think he's becoming incoherent," Rolo's worried voice broke through. "Suzaku?" Suzaku blinked; his vision was clearing, a bit.

"It's better now."

Suzaku remembered something. "Hey, Dorothea, you know that one Knight under your jurisdiction who can see the lines of the future, right?"

The Knight of Four turned. "He died in a raid two months ago."

"Then who else- Lord Waldstein?"

Dorothea snorted. "The Knight of One's Geass extends only a few seconds into the future for people within his range. That's why he puts such an emphasis on physical fighting."

Suzaku sighed. "We have no leads."

"Give up on the Knight of Two," Dorothea advised. "If the Sidhe return him, maybe we can try something."

He shook his head. Even now, that memory of Lelouch, a different Lelouch from the one he knew, frightened him. His best friend wasn't supposed to be his worst enemy. "No. They won't. I don't know how, but I saw Lelouch. As a Sidhe."

"That's impossible. He's a Knight of the Round. Have faith in him."

That was impossible. Suzaku just _knew_ that if he didn't do anything, that smile would appear on Lelouch's face. He simply turned away and left.

~`*'~

"_What is this?"_ Lelouch asked dully, touching the soft black fabric. _"What happened to my clothes?" _

"_You've lost weight,"_ Tohdoh said critically, dodging the subject. _"Your own uniform probably won't fit you anymore; this is incentive against escape attempts in the future; you won't get far in Britannia wearing our uniform." _

"_And from the outside point of view, there isn't any difference in appearance between human and fae,"_ Lelouch murmured quietly, laying the clothes out. _"And no human would believe me even if I told you the truth, but the fae can tell, and turn me in."_ A sliver of horror wound its way past the numbing fog in his mind.

"_Just put them on,"_ Tohdoh grunted. The chair he sat on creaked as he redistributed his weight on it. _"I'll be back in half an hour, and I expect you to be fully dressed by then." _

Lelouch looked at the clothing more closely; its design was nothing like that of Britannian clothes. Carefully, he ran his hands along the seams of the shirt, making sure there was nothing he was supposed to pull apart before he pulled it on.

Gray pants followed; this had been part of somebody's uniform, judging by the wear on the fabric. Someone who had been impeccably armed. The boots were his; he could tell, but the garrote he hid in one of them was missing. He eyed the jacket, considering, before leaving it behind. He didn't need reminders.

Then he tested the wards surrounding the room again; he was still trapped inside. With a sigh, he sat down in the chair Tohdoh had vacated and waited.

~`*'~

Tohdoh was not a happy subordinate. He knelt in front of his lord, waiting.

"_How goes the training?" _

"_We… are making progress." _

"_Good. See to it that you continue that progress. That… child is far more important than either of you realize, and we are short on time." _

"_Yes, my lord." _

It was for the good of the Sidhe, and of the fae. He would do whatever he needed to ensure that his people were better off.

Marianne's child was sitting, waiting for him. The jacket lay on the bed, obviously abandoned. _"Put that on," _he stated, motioning towards it. "The weather's getting colder."

"_It's not an issue of my being half-dressed?"_ the brat asked wistfully.

"_It's a matter of identity,"_ he replied.

All hints of relaxation dropped from the former Knight, and cold, calculating, purple eyes stared at him flatly as their owner stumbled over to the bed and dragged it on. _"You've mentioned it." _

Tohdoh ignored the statement, filing away the comment for later, and offered his arm. _"The wards are keyed to you. Besides, I doubt you could phase anywhere, much less past dampening wards. Grab on and we'll get out of here." _

After a moment's consideration, a hand closed around his wrist lightly. _"Do I need to squeeze, or will merely a touch suffice?"_

"_Don't play coy,"_ Tohdoh snapped. _"You know it all depends on proximity and will, you've done it so many times." _

The brat opened his mouth to say something, and Tohdoh took the chance to cut him off by phasing. With a simple bend, they were in the kitchen, and the Knight was down, gasping for air.

"_My bad,"_ he replied, ashamed to be taking such petty satisfaction at his mental sparring opponent's ill health.

"_Shut… up…" _And just like that, the former Knight was asleep, out like a candle flame.

"_I thought he was recovering,"_ Kallen replied, slightly surprised, as she poked the brat's prone form lightly with her mug.

"_I did too. Apparently we were wrong."_ If that idiot had damaged his reserves permanently with his idiotic stunt….

Kallen sighed. _"I'll give him the details when he wakes up." _

"_Of course. You are my second, after all." _

He watched as Kallen sat down across from the sleeping brat, talking excitedly and gesturing animatedly to oblivious ears. But then, considering Kallen's area of expertise, maybe not so much. _Who are you, really, brat? Prince, Knight, Sidhe, traitor- which of those, if any, are your identity? Which do you ally yourself with? _He turned to leave; he had to explain this new possible development to his lord.

~`*'~

He was tired. All he wanted to do was sleep, but no. Someone was talking in his ear, and other people were laughing uproariously.

"_I think he's awake!"_ a loud, rather obnoxious-sounding woman screamed, whacking him on the head, and he ineffectively tried to bat her hand away, lifting her head and giving her a Look.

"_Ooh, does the Prince think he can intimidate us?"_ a rowdy, drunk Sidhe with short, spiky red hair whooped. Golden eyes peered blearily at him.

"_I think the Prince just thinks you're an idiot,"_ Lelouch replied idly.

"_Oh- hic!"_ the drunk said, disappointed. _"Oh, by the way, I'm Tama- Tema- Tamaki. I 'aven' seen yooou 'round 'eeeere lately. Whoooore you?" _

Lelouch stared at him for a second before asking, _"Is he normally like this?"_

The redheaded owner of the obnoxious voice nodded sadly. _"Unfortunately. The only reason he's still alive is because he has crazy luck. He won't get caught or die, no matter the situation." _

"_Is that an ability or is that just coincidence?"_ Lelouch asked.

Kallen gave him a look. _"You- a Knight- believing in coincidences? Bah!" _

So it was an ability, then. Fae magic? Lelouch gave a mental shrug. It was useless for him to conjecture with so little information, much of it arguably not quite valid. So, to blend in, he dove right into the fray. _"Do you guys still have anything to eat?" _

The redhead pointed to a door. _"I'm Kallen, by the way. Nice to meet you." _

Lelouch nodded to her formally. _"Let's just pretend this is our first meeting." _

"_Oh, you remember me!"_ Kallen's delighted voice snickered.

"_It's nice to meet you too." _

The Sidhe snickered. _"Developing your own fantasy world?" _

"_I've heard stories of what happened whenever the fae... encountered... humans. They're not very pretty." _

At that most of the Sidhe in earshot laughed outright. _"Pretty was the last thing they had to worry about." _

Lelouch scowled. _"It was meant as an unusual euphemism."_ At the merest hint of thought, the rustling of otherworldly feathers filtered through the back of his mind. He hissed and put a hand to his left eye; it came back red and sticky. _"Shit!"_

On the bright side, at least no one was laughing at him anymore. In fact, he could distinctly hear worried queries and shouts as he sank to one knee. He could feel wings, hovering just out of reach, not quite brushing his skin. His mother was saying something, but he could only hear flying. _"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" _

"_I thought I brought you here to eat, not make a fuss,"_ Tohdoh was saying. Couldn't he feel them? Lelouch hugged himself and shivered.

"_Shut up,"_ he whispered. His mother's words were becoming cleared, even as a burning sensation spread from his left eye. _"I thought my child was to be left in peace, Kyoshiro-kun?"_

Almost deliriously, he could see Tohdoh's face paling, and the rest of the Sidhe were backing away cautiously. _He can hear her?_

His mother snickered, and he stood up. _"Honestly, I thought I could trust you at least to not make a mess out of all this."_

"_Marianne,"_ Tohdoh whispered in shock. _He could hear her? _Lelouch wondered.

"_Honestly, Kyoshiro-kun, I never expected you to be the incompetent one here. Remember, harm him and I'll exact sevenfold vengeance. So be good!"_ His mother was definitely being overly cheerful, considering the situation. At that point, black wings embraced him, cradling him in a quiet, careless void. He fell from his body, into a stasis that was both relieving and stifling.

~`*'~

VV looked at his older, female counterpart. "So?"

CC sighed, hugging an enormous plush toy. "The wheels of fate are moving again."

"Stop being apocalyptic and speak like normal people do," the younger immortal complained. "Do you still have any of that food you call pizza?"

"Just call it "pizza" and not "that food you call pizza" already, will you?" CC grumbled as she handed a slice to him. "After all, you have a personal stake in this matter."

VV sent her an odd look. "As do you," he replied slowly. "You were the one who gave him his Geass, and he has proven more proficient than anyone has in a millennium. A millennium of fighting between Britannia and the fae. Maybe he'll be the one?"

"That's what we thought with Mao, too," CC said, picking at her cheese. "It truly is rather sad that most fae react quite badly with the Geass. They would make much better candidates than the humans."

"We were human ourselves," VV reminded. "Besides, there is still the question of vi Britannia's odd parentage. Something like this has never been tried before."

"Aa," CC agreed. "We are now in the twilight era of civilizations, possibly precluding the rise of man."

VV threw a pillow at her. "Talk like normal people, damn it!"

"Don't you have a class to teach or something?" came the acerbic reply. VV looked outside.

"I'm late!"

And CC was left to her random musings.

"It is true, then. I can't believe you're playing your hand now; this is still way too early. But I guess it will suffice, whether he wants it to be so or not."

~`*'~


	4. Chapter 4

How many roads must a man walk down,

Before you can call him a man?

Yes, 'n' how many seas must the white dove sail,

Before she sleeps in the sand?

Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannonballs fly,

Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind,

The answer is blowing in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist,

Before it's washed to the sea?

Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist,

Before they're allowed to be free?

Yes, 'n' how many time can a man turn his head,

Pretending he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

The answer is blowing in the wind.

How many times must a man look up,

Before he can see the sky?

Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have,

Before he can hear people cry?

Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows,

That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

The answer is blowing in the wind.

- "Blowing in the Wind", Bob Dylan

~`*'~

Chapter 4: Lemon Tree

~`*'~

"What are you doing?" Suzaku asked brusquely. Anya didn't look up; in her journal was a half-finished picture of Lelouch, drawn in one of his rare moments of spontaneous joy. Suzaku was tempted to touch his friend's smile but didn't.

It hurt to dwell on the past. And every day Suzaku reminded himself that it wasn't _his_ fault, per se, that it was now the past.

Who was he kidding? Of course it was his fault. He should have stayed closer to Lelouch- they were best friends, weren't they? Instead, like everyone else, he'd basically abandoned Lelouch. Even the fact that they'd found Lelouch earlier did nothing to soothe his mind; it was only pure luck that they'd even caught sight of the Knight of Two to see the fae kidnap him.

"Stop thinking about him."

"Anya?"

Geass floated in a pink iris before sinking away again. "Thinking won't help."

"At this point in time we have only two courses," Jeremiah pointed out, sitting down with a grunt on Suzaku's other side. "Do nothing and wait for the Sidhe to move, or move on our own."

"The first would be more logical." Anya closed her journal.

"The second is what I'd do, though," Gino observed.

Villetta walked up to them. "I'd want to search for him, too. Guess who his replacement is?"

"That bitch of a girl, Caterina?" Suzaku asked dully. "Her Geass is beyond useless."

"Please don't compare me to something like her," a light voice scolded. Rolo stepped out. "I just graduated, remember? Let's search for Lelouch!"

"We need the Emperor's permission to undertake a mission that leads into fae lands," Suzaku pointed out. "He won't agree; he doesn't want escalation."

"Not since he married the First Empress Marianne," Anya agreed.

"Let's ask anyways," Gino suggested.

Suzaku resisted the urge to facepalm. "How did you become Knight of Three again, Gino?"

Gino only laughed. "Come on!"

And, certain failure or not, at least begging the Emperor to go on a suicide mission would make him feel less as if he were completely useless and more as if he were _doing_ something.

~`*'~

When Lelouch woke up, it was to darkness and restraints. He tested his arms cautiously; they were twisted and bound behind his back.

"_Why a straitjacket?"_ he murmured.

"_You had a... fit,"_ Tohdoh murmured from somewhere in front of him; he flinched, not having expected anyone to answer.

"_I see,"_ he paused, trying to formulate his next words. _"I saw my mother. She was talking to you."_

"_It's nothing you need to worry about."_ Lelouch was fairly certain the Sidhe was lying.

"_If you say so." _He'd never had a fit of any sort in his life. _"Why is my Geass gone? It evolved enough to be permanent; now, it barely appears, even when I try to activate it."_

The Sidhe shifted with a rustle of cloth. _"That is due to the nature of the Geass, and the nature of the fae. As I said, you needn't worry about it."_

Lelouch wished for friends who wouldn't lie to him, and a wave of homesickness washed over him. It was suddenly difficult to swallow. "I just want to go home," he whispered. Something hot seeped out from behind his closed eyelids and soaked itchily into the blindfold. After a short pause, the Sidhe murmured something and vanished with a fold of space-time, and he curled up as best he could in a semi-fetal position to wallow in his misery.

"_If you behave, we'll see about that." _

In the back of his mind, he could hear his mother humming the same song she had always hummed in the rose gardens back in the Aries Imperial Villa as they laughed and she sometimes told him about the sister he never had.

And yet, somehow, it wasn't the expansive, sweet-scented fields of roses he knew that he was transported to in his mind, it was a simple wooden house, with a field of sunflowers and ice-capped mountains hovering in the background.

_These aren't my memories! _he panicked. Why did this remind him of Suzaku? Ahead of him he could see a head of wavy light brown hair, and he ran to it, somehow knowing who she was.

_Hello, onii-sama. It's me, Nunnally._

~`*'~

"_How is it going?"_ Tohdoh asked.

Nunnally shook her head. Her perpetually closed eyes made no motion of emotion in her face. _"I can walk in dreams, but even with the bond of blood I cannot find her. She has hidden herself well inside her son's mind." _

"_He is your brother, you know," _Kallen interjected from beside her.

Nunnally's smile was sad. _"I know. I've been hoping to see him. I don't even know if Mother told him about me." _

"_You are her eldest daughter- her only other child. She would not forget that." _

Tears leaked from behind her tightly shut eyelids. _"No, she wouldn't have. You're right."_ She gave a small, brave smile to the other two.

Kallen clasped her hands in her friend's. _"Don't worry. If he does anything to you, I will make sure he regrets it seven times over." _

Nunnally shook her head frantically. _"We cannot meet. If we were- I fear for his sanity at such a stage." _

Tohdoh's eyes narrowed shrewdly. _"Do you really believe he is the one?"_

Nunnally nodded frantically. _"He must be! I can feel it!" _

Tohdoh only bowed respectfully. _"Thank you, my lady." _

He and Kallen left.

~`*'~

Lelouch already knew he would obey. By now, he'd do anything for a chance to see his _nakama_ again. He also knew that what he was doing involved mental conditioning, but he couldn't help himself. The lure of seeing his friends again was just too strong.

As he practiced various basic forms of fae magic, he often wondered why he didn't just run away. As always, the answer came back- the best route to seeing his nakama again lay in obeying. He wondered just how far the coercions had burrowed into his mind, and sometimes if there were coercions at all or if that was just his fevered imagination and a hefty dose of insanity.

He had had his "fits" twice more since he'd started practicing; each time he'd fallen into darkness whispering of feathers just out of reach and the mocking laughter of his mother ringing in his ears, and each time he'd woken up feeling completely drained.

He could often catch Tohdoh or the other Sidhe giving him pitying looks, which he ignored. There was nothing he could do right now, except hope to see his friends again. It would probably break their hearts to see him like this, but even that would be preferable to having them risk themselves needlessly for him.

No matter how much he tried to recover it, his magic reservoir remained depressingly empty, to the point that he wondered if there was a point to this at all. No matter how much he ate, no matter how much Tohdoh forced him into practicing physical exercises, he seemed to remain in the same weakened state he'd been in after his disastrous attempt at escape.

Even now, he gasped and leaned over, panting for breath. He'd been simply walking when he realized he didn't have the strength to return. He barely had the strength to move, and simply collapsed, cradled by the upthrust roots of an ancient tree. He was just so tired...

What was wrong with him?

~`*'~

Suzaku blocked, then attacked; his blade slid along Gino's with a shower of sparks. "Does the Emperor not care about his son?"

"He has spares," Gino agreed. "But even though he holds a soft spot for Lelouch, he cannot risk the danger of an entire kingdom on a wild-goose chase!"

"Wasn't asking him your idea in the first place?!" Suzaku bellowed.

Gino jumped back as a particularly vicious thrust threatened to catch him just below the ribs. "I still want to go. I just see the bigger picture. Suzaku, I don't think the Emperor's telling the whole truth."

Suzaku paused, then cursed as he was forced to dodge a diagonal swing. "Why wouldn't he?"

"He doesn't seem worried enough, but more preoccupied than he should be. He knows something we don't, he doesn't like it, but he knows he can't do anything about it."

Suzaku frowned. "The Emperor did seem a little off..."

Gino shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Guard!"

The match resumed in silence, but both parties were more than preoccupied with the knowledge the Emperor had and what it boded for their friend and former teammate.

~`*'~

"_This cannot continue."_ Kallen gritted her teeth. She gestured wildly to the pathetic form lying cradled in a small hollow. _"He's losing weight. If the drain continues, he will die." _

Tohdoh scooped the unconscious Knight up. _"We have no choice. Marianne has chosen this path." _

"_Are her demands really that hard for you to give into?!"_ Kallen bellowed wildly. _"He's just a child, even by human standards, and we're letting him die! What would Nunnally-sama say?!" _

Tohdoh didn't spare a glance for the figure in his arms. _"You never knew her, Kallen. I was her partner, for a time. She's every bit as sneaky and devious as the records portray her as, and more. If we give in now, things will end up worse. I swear it." _

"_The drains are becoming stronger and at shorter intervals," _Kallen calculated, frowning thoughtfully. _"We did force Marianne to use up a large chunk of her powers when we fought that first time she materialized. Perhaps she's trying to regain that and only considering her child second?" _

"_The only flaw in your reasoning is that Marianne has already taken in enough power to replenish what she lost several times over, even if she lost all her power. It wasn't the pure strength of her magic that made her so dangerous, it was how she could utilize it. Her son has the power, and she's taking it all."_ Tohdoh's face was set in a forbidding expression. _"No, this is merely her chance to test the waters, see what we're willing to take. I don't think she really even cares about her son, except as another pawn in her games." _

"_I wish Nunnally could exorcise her mother," _Kallen sighed. _"Marianne is probably the most frightening person I have ever met." _

Kallen's words made only far too much sense to Tohdoh. _What are you planning now, Marianne?_ he thought irritably. _And what will the cost be this time?_

Lelouch's life- that was too high a price in the careful game of power they all held stakes in. Tohdoh hated the words that came out of his mouth, and for the first time could empathise with the brat he held. _"We have to give in to her demands."_

At once, stick-thin arms wrapped around him, squeezing tightly before letting go.

"_See? How hard was that?"_ Marianne's voice whispered in his ear just before her son reclaimed control of his own body and fell into a genuine, if uneasy sleep. _"You have something I want. I have something you need. Equivalent trade."_

Tohdoh swallowed the sharp retort and the unease growing in his throat and concentrated on the trek back to their base.

~`*'~

Rolo thought of Lelouch as an older brother. He loved the way the Prince fought, all strength and desperation and concentrated skill and pride; he loved the way Lelouch talked to his friends, calm and collected; he loved the way Lelouch used his Geass; loved the way Lelouch drew his circle of friends together, so close, so intimate, with charisma alone.

Now that Lelouch was gone, so was the center of Rolo's world. As the days passed by, Rolo found himself frequenting places he knew Lelouch had, in the vain hope that the Knight of Two would somehow pass by and make life worth living again, found himself wishing ever more desperately for the Prince's presence.

Life with Suzaku and the others was nice, but nothing on what it could have been with Lelouch in the equation.

"Lelouch," he whispered, curled up miserably on his bed in his room in the Knight headquarters at Pendragon. His body throbbed, hot and sticky, yearning to be around the Prince. "Lelouch."

~`*'~

"You look exhausted," Suzaku murmured quietly. Jeremiah did not look up from his pages of notes.

"I almost raised him, you know?" he asked. "I was his bodyguard, along with Villetta. Together, we took care of him, played with him, answered his questions when his parents weren't around. And they usually weren't around. Sometimes, I think the only reason why he loves his parents is because he feels obligated to. And yet, he almost worshipped them, who never did anything for him but bring him into the world. It's so unfair."

Suzaku frowned at the mental image. "His childhood must have been lonely, then."

Jeremiah shrugged. "He seemed to be fine with only us. The only siblings he kept in contact with, as well, were Schneizel, Cornelia, Euphy, and possibly Clovis. Considering the number of siblings he has, that amount is very, very small."

Suzaku wished he could have seen Lelouch as the innocent, young child he had once been. He voiced his opinion.

Jeremiah shook his head in amusement. "Young, yes, but innocent? We sometimes used to think that he'd been born wise, he was just that smart. Schneizel was the only one on his level, and Schneizer is ten years older than Lelouch."

"Schneizel, as in the genius Crown Prince?" Suzaku asked. "The one heading Project Camelot?"

Jeremiah nodded. "That Schneizel."

Suzaku was impressed. "He never mentioned any of that. It's so impressive."

"He wanted to be treated the same as everyone else was," Villetta said, walking in. "Sometimes I think that was his greatest goal in life."

Suzaku smiled. "I've been assigned to find and counter the Wild Hunt up north, near the border town Shinjuku."

"Shinjuku- that fae-tolerant place?" Jeremiah perked up. "Maybe we can find out what happened to Lelouch!"

Suzaku nodded. "I'm to assemble a team of four and head over there for preliminary recon into the movements of the Sidhe."

"Over Lelouch's whereabouts or of the fae in general?" Villetta interjected.

"I think to ensure that they're keeping their side of the peace," Suzaku admitted truthfully. "I don't really know. The Emperor just told us to gather information and prepare for battle."

Villetta nodded. "I want to join."

Suzaku shifted. "Um, I already have four people, but if you really want to, I can remove Denkin-"

Villetta shook her head. "No, I'll just take another assignment, or take a break. Denkin deserves to serve under a Knight of Rounds, and I just came back from Border Area 12. After all, isn't he the one with Absolute Motion? I take it we'll see you in another few months?"

Suzaku shook his head. "Probably not for another year, at least."

"Goodbye, then," Jeremiah said distractedly, riffling through his papers.

"What are you researching?" Suzaku heard Villetta ask as he left, searching for Rolo and Deneve, the other two members of his team. They would meet up with Denkin at the edge of Area 12, where he was already stationed.

~`*'~

"You're better," Tohdoh admitted. "Your friend- Suzaku, was it?- is heading towards here. If you keep up the good behavior, then I'll let you see him."

It rankled to have to deal with the Prince this way, but so far it had been the best method out of all the ones he'd tried.

Lelouch vi Britannia only nodded. He'd lost that spirit of rebellion these days; perhaps the coercions in his mind urging him to cooperate and obey were finally taking hold.

"Now, back to practice." The merest breath later, and power shimmered around the Knight in an incandescent aura to those who had the eyes to see it. A semisolid, shimmering shield rose up a few seconds later, colors rippling throughout its surface like those on a soap bubble. "Rein in your energy!"

"I'm trying!" Every time he stopped or slowed down the flow of power, the shield would vanish. "I don't think it'll work that way!"

Tohdoh frowned. Shields where power still flowed through them in a living pattern were almost exclusively the territory of water elementals. Those types of shields used up large quantities of energy but also had the ability to absorb, deflect, or reflect most attacks, magical or mundane. And if the Prince had energy to spare… "Very well. We will do it your way, then."

"Yes."

~`*'~

Three weeks later, Suzaku rode into Shinjuku, his horse lathered, as were the mounts of his two companions. Rolo and Deneve said nothing as they followed him in, leaving the tired beasts to the groom. The town had seen better days, most likely before the Britannian-Sidhe conflicts had focused on that region.

The inn was crowded, but the gaiety of voices was muted, sometimes overly shrill, as if the inhabitants of the town, fae and human alike, were attempting to convince themselves that everything would be all right.

Suzaku refrained from snorting as he looked around, trying to find his fourth partner. It would be rude, and he didn't want to antagonize the fae just yet. Or at all, for that matter. It was sobering to realize that everything you did, what you did for a living, now probably affected the treatment and fate of your best friend.

Denkin sat in a corner, chewing on something large and meaty. He waved them in, muddy green eyes alighting with recognition. His mousy hair had been cropped short.

"I haven't seen you in a while, Deneve!"

Deneve nodded. "I've been busy. Is that-"

"Here, have some." And with that, he pushed the rest of the pie in their direction. Suzaku sat down and took a hot slice gratefully.

As they ate, he looked around again; this was the standard village inn common room, with a large fireplace grate, a small bar, many tables, and a minstrel. How odd. A minstrel, by any means, should have left already for better pickings. Britannia's northeastern border was not a place for profit. So what was keeping the man here?

"How far has your search gone?" he asked quietly, eyeing a pair of fae in the corner opposite theirs. They ignored him and kept talking. No, they were not Sidhe.

Denkin shook his head. "I heard that one of their high ranking members is showing up in a few days."

Suzaku nodded. "We'll be there to greet them."

~`*'~

He had said he'd be waiting, but he hadn't envisioned this. It seemed as if most of the town was gathered in the square, waiting for fae upper command. If Suzaku had been wearing his uniform as Knight of Rounds- he snorted.

Finally, the fae arrived. The leader was obviously male, with a stern, high-cheekboned, severe face. He was followed by a male with green hair and glasses and a female with short brown hair.

"Kyoshiro Tohdoh," Rolo whispered, amazed. "He's a legend."

"He probably knows about Lelouch," Suzaku whispered back.

"I don't see that fae you said captured him," Deneve whispered, brushing short white-blond hair out of her face.

Against his better instincts, Suzaku stepped out of the crowd, uniform and all. The effect was immediate; some people bolted for safety, most stood there in shock, and the Sidhe moved toward their weapons.

"I am only here to ask questions," he said, allowing the Geass to fade from his eye. "Do you know the whereabouts of the Knight of Two?"

Tohdoh frowned. "No, I'm afraid not." He was lying. Suzaku could tell, for some reason.

It was a small chance, but... he surreptitiously signaled Rolo and the others to track the Sidhe delegation as he slid back into the crowd. Soon enough, the Sidhe would finish their business here and leave....

A redheaded Sidhe stepped in front of him rudely as he reached the outskirts of town. The forest lay less than fifty meters away, easily visible from the open main gate, and the Sidhe delegation was already vanishing into the undergrowth. "Hey, what're ya doing?!" the Sidhe screamed in fury, obviously and desperately trying to prevent Suzaku from going somewhere, and failing miserably.

"I'm taking a walk," Suzaku lied stiffly. Luckily, his opponent didn't notice the lie. Instead, the Sidhe had frozen, staring at the symbol emblazoned on Suzaku's left sleeve. (_"Aah... shit!"_)

Suzaku looked at the trees, and froze.

_Lelouch!? _

~`*'~

"Let's go on a trip." Despite the wording, it was not a question. Obediently, Lelouch followed Tohdoh outside. A flux in power and sudden shift in scenery, and Lelouch was in the middle of unknown forest. Alone. He could hear a town in the distance, somewhere to his right, and he headed off toward it.

Why would Tohdoh drop him off here? Was it to make a point? Nonetheless, the annoying, nagging urge in the back of his mind he associated with the fae's coercions told him to head toward town, and he did so, becoming more annoyed by the minute.

However, as he drew closer to the palisade surrounding most of the town, he could understand why; there were humans there. Either Tohdoh hadn't wanted to announce his presence, or he was planning a surprise. Lelouch would bet the latter. He inched slowly toward the high wooden walls, trying not to be seen.

Everyone in the town seemed to be elsewhere; the entire place was deserted. Lelouch saw hens penned up, the few cattle and horses locked up somewhere. So they hadn't been surprised. They'd had enough time to put away their livestock, and enough incentive to put away their livestock.

The treeline was barely fifty feet away, and he slinked closer nervously. What if there were Knights here? It wasn't as if Lelouch could simply walk away from them, and there was no guarantee they wouldn't attack him on sight, dressed as he was.

No, it would be easier to wait. Soon enough, someone wearing the Knights' uniform walked out, wandering aimlessly, and Lelouch let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Whoever it was had only been taking a walk or something else more mundane than a random search in the woods. Then the person turned as Tamaki- that idiot- suddenly confronted him, and Lelouch caught sight of the gold embroidery, brown hair, and dark green eyes.

_Oh, shit._

Lelouch stared at Suzaku, remembering his old friend, as he automatically hid behind a tree. He didn't want Suzaku to see what he was wearing.

Suzaku suddenly looked in his direction, and his eyes widened in recognition.

_It's supposed to be some sort of trap!_ was the first thing on his mind, followed by _that idiot._

He opened his mouth to speak, to say something, to reassure his friend, but suddenly Tohdoh was looming up behind him, his hand on Lelouch's shoulder as the energy to bend space-time rippled around them.

And then they were gone, and Lelouch let the useless tears slide down his face as the coercions against leaving returned. This wasn't how he'd hoped to see his friends again.

~`*'~

Tsuzuku?


	5. Chapter 5

Kawaite sakebigoe ga kikoeta

Kioku no nake no yani no hodoite

Itsumo saigo no kotae erande wa dareka wo kizuzuketeta

Sou nani ga shinjitsu ka wakaranai nana ni

Kana yakinosu tane

Kimi wa ikusen no toki no koeteyuku

Nodoranai aka no kakera

Nigirishimete sanayoitsuzuketeku

Kimi wo utsushidaseru

Sono hitomi wo wagashidarunade

Sanashigeta ao no kakera

Nune ni afureteyuku

Kioku wo dakishimete

Owaru koto no nai tabi he to

I heard your voice go hoarse as you screamed.

Unravel the darkness that resides in your memories.

Whenever you took the last resort,

Someone wound up getting hurt.

True, you may have lost sight of what's true and what isn't,

But in order to regain your sparkle,

You must cross over thousands of years' worth of time.

While embracing the crimson shards that shall never return

You continue on your wanderings,

Until the day I can see you again,

Until the day I can see your eyes again,

My heart will be filled with

The blue shard you've been looking for,

Embrace your memories,

As you embark on a never-ending journey.

-"Aka no Kakera", Yuki Suzuki

~`*'~

Chapter 5: Antebellum

~`*'~

Suzaku didn't care about the mission much anymore. The sooner it was over with, the faster he could get out of here and report his sighting. Denkin and Deneve were ranged several dozen feet off on either side of him, scouring the woods for any rogue Sidhe.

With a sudden _fwap_, the world inverted. With a soft curse, he wrestled his knife out of his boot and cut the vine currently holding him hostage.

_Stupid traps._ The Sidhe had covered their trail very well- they'd set up a several-mile wide swath of various traps, first reported by the hunters who had ventured in there earlier, none of which had gotten more than a hundred meters into the wood.

With a grunt, Suzaku picked up a large rock and threw it somewhere to his right, dodging. Something like a catapult launched an equally enormous chunk of dirt, and he was forced to shield his eyes. A noise from over head warned him, and he jumped out of the way of a falling tree.

Yes, it was the Knights' duty to clean up Britannia after the Sidhe, but this was just stupid! Suzaku pulled out a heavy axe and carefully stepped forward.

To add to his troubles, it began raining. The deadfall under his boots crunched, releasing the smell of wet earth and decay. He began losing his footing more often, and the ground soon became a sticky mass of mud and bits of hard, sharp objects poking through his boots.

Fighting his way through the traps became nightmarish, and within minutes he'd given up on anything but movement and reflex. His shoulder hurt where he'd bruised it against a tree when trying to avoid something that resembled a living javelin; he'd twisted his ankle trying to avoid a ten-foot deep pit.

_When did the Sidhe have the time to make all these?_ he wondered vaguely as the ground gave way beneath him again. _Or did they use their accursed magi- ooooh, they're getting clever. There're spikes along this one. _A boulder rolled over the pit, ending his dilemma over what to do with the pit before some enterprising idiot decided to step into it.

Then, suddenly, the forest was still. There was not even the sound of animals; the sound of the traps' being triggered had been enough to scare off even the bravest.

Almost in disbelief, he stared, peering into a thickening fog, scanning the surrounding forest for more traps and seeing none. All around him, destruction lay in tangled messes of rope, stone, wood, and other substances he could not name and did not want to know about in the least. Luckily, anything that would have involved fire was out due to the weather.

He took a deep breath and smelled flowers; at the time, he only thought that perhaps he'd crushed a bed of them somewhere. The discrepancy didn't come until later.

"Clear!" he called hoarsely, bending over to catch his breath. He vaguely remembered smelling this type of flower in Area 4. It had been hot and dry there, where he'd seen leafless, spiky plants called cacti, and he and Lelouch had tried their overly sweet fruit in the aftermath of a hunt. There hadn't been many Sidhe there; the forest there was losing ground to desert every year, and with it the fae were also leaving.

"Clear!" Deneve to his right called. "No severe injuries!"

He stayed where he was, waiting for the last call. Faint crashes came from Denkin's area.

"Clear!" came the final call. "Dislocated right shoulder, otherwise fine!"

The Sidhe had left a large field of traps in an area seven hundred meters wide, four hundred meters deep, ranged all throughout the forest levels.

They hadn't wanted people to follow them, Suzaku mused, vainly trying to clean the mud and debris off himself with his not-so-white uniform. Soon, the scents of dirt and rain obscured every other smell.

"Lord Kururugi?" the two were closer. "Your condition!"

"Minor injuries only!" he called. He'd gotten the brunt of the attacks, situated in the center as he was. He was sitting on the remnants of an old log when they found him; both of them looked around, impressed.

"Wow," Denkin said, nursing his shoulder. He looked paler than usual.

"Let's head back and do a secondary sweep later," Suzaku suggested. Overhead, thunder crashed, unleashing torrents of rain. "Apparently, even the weather agrees with me."

They shared a weak laugh and began heading back, huddled together. None of them had been wearing much more than the minimum, due to the amount of activity they'd been expecting. Now, the temperature had dropped drastically, and the rain was freezing.

"It might be snowing later," Deneve shivered.

"Hail, more likely," Suzaku forced through numb lips. "I can't wait to get back."

"I only hope they didn't lock us out," Denkin muttered. "I'd hate to have to wait outside."

"At least climbing over the walls would warm us up," Deneve shot back.

"If we had the strength to do it," Suzaku muttered. "I really hate this mission."

"Seconded."

~`*'~

"This place is clean," Denkin muttered, scribbling down his preliminary report in the common room of their inn. Outside, true to prediction, it was sleeting. They had barely made it through the gates; another few minutes, and they would have been locked outside. "Nothing. It's as if that Sidhe who visited- Tohdoh? Anyways, the one with the reputation- he probably scared them off. I heard they're undergoing some sort of rebellion or something. It's supposed to be over some position or other, and a prophecy. Nasty business." He poked at his tankard. "Why is there an age limit for drinking?"

"To encourage underage tipsiness," Suzaku muttered under his breath. At least the other patrons, seeing their rather frozen, battered appearances, had made room for them next to the hearth, where it was warmest. His had not been a nice day. Early on, before he'd gotten warier and simply ended up triggering everything, he'd fallen into several cleverly-made traps, discovered and dismantled several dozen more, and was now itching like mad. His various scrapes stung, and he'd be aching in the morning. "Denkin, does oleander grow up here?"

Deneve frowned, trying to squeeze her hair dry. "Lord Kururugi, even I can tell you that oleander is a desert plant. It would die up here for lack of sun."

"I kept smelling it in the woods today," Suzaku explained. "Did either of you two catch it?"

This time, both sent looks at him.

"Alright," he admitted, "but if it is, then-" The three exchanged dawning looks of horror. If the fae from the southern areas had moved all the way up here, when most were unwilling to even leave the area near the groves they'd been born in...

"That Sidhe problem might just be more than a problem up here soon," Denkin muttered. He jumped up. "I'll go warn-"

Suzaku shook his head. "I'll go. I noticed it, first. It's not the only anomaly I noticed, but it's the most prevalent. Be wary; I'll send reinforcements up here."

"How many?" Denkin asked unnecessarily.

Suzaku was already mapping out the surrounding area in his head, and calculating the odds. "Half a company, maybe? This could account for why there's virtually no activity in the South these days. Area 6 has had no attacks in the last two years, none at all. And now they venture into Pendragon, into the heart of Britannia- I'll go now."

Thirty minutes later, the scent of oleander faded, and a lone hound howled morosely at the uncaring moon.

Shinjuku burned to the ground.

~`*'~

"Stop crying," Tohdoh grumbled. Lelouch ignored him. "Get up!"

"Go away!" After they'd returned, he'd gone straight to bed, curled up, clothes and all, and not moved since. He sniffed softly, trying not to catch the Sidhe's attention. "Why'd you do that to me? What were you trying to teach me then? That it's too late? That I can't try anything? That you're going to kill my friends?"

His breath rasped painfully in his throat, and he pulled the blanket over his head, blocking out all light and sound.

"Take your shields down!" Lelouch jumped, tangling himself in his blankets and landing on the floor painfully. Or at least he thought he did; for a second, he was in two places at once, both curled up, unmoving, on the bed and sitting on the floor behind layers of ruby, translucent shields he had apparently accidentally created. He reached out; it felt tangibly solid to his touch as no shield had felt before, and he realized he wasn't in his body-

As quickly as he'd thought that, he was curled up again, under the blankets.

_What the?!_

He let Tohdoh's words urge him to sit up and dismiss his protections. Afterward, he barely listened to the Sidhe, trying to figure out what he had just done and what he could do with his newfound... ability... afterwards.

~`*'~

Suzaku had just reached Hartford when he heard of the incident.

"No survivors, you say?" he asked the messenger tightly.

The man shook his head regretfully. "I'm afraid not."

"I will report this to the Emperor. Give your news to the Knights' Headquarters. Tell them the Knight of Seven sent you." Suzaku paused to throw a saddle over the horse he had just requisitioned, a raw-boned white giant with legs like steel and an oddly placid temper. The locals had assured him it was fast, and he had assured them it would be returned, along with a large fee if they were correct.

Five minutes later, he was riding the fastest horse he'd ever ridden at a gallop, unwilling to slow down to give it a breather and let the messenger catch up. He made a mental note to buy it from them if at all possible.

"I dub thee Launcelot," he muttered under his breath, patting its neck as it snorted, bobbing its head as if it understood him. "Or Lancelot, in modern Britannian."

Suddenly, he couldn't wait to go again. The messenger could take care of himself, as a former Knight who hadn't had the stomach for the job after meeting up with a particularly beautiful red-headed Sidhe. The resulting fight had been bloody and not particularly successful, leaving the messenger blind in one eye and without a Geass. The Knights' messengers were all still very competent fighters, however, and some bandits were very stupid. As much as he just wanted to just ride the entire last stretch home as fast as he could, he couldn't.

Finally, he heard the clop of hooves along the road, and set off again.

The sooner he could report his news, the better. He had a friend to catch, other friends to mourn, and Sidhe to hunt.

~`*'~

"_Cu Sidhe,"_ Lelouch breathed, staring at the enormous hound. Its shaggy fur was a mix of dark green and black, and red eyes stared mournfully at him. In fact, it reminded him of nothing so much as a cocker spaniel- albeit one the size of a young heifer. _"It's huge."_

"_They're trackers, former Knight, can catch anything after they've caught a scent, and for some damnfool reason they're nocturnal,"_ the kennel keeper, someone Lelouch remembered vaguely from his times in the cafeteria and around the base as a bit of a loud fool, complained, stroking his charge lovingly. The hound blinked lazily and leaned into the touch. _"Tohdoh told me to show them to you. This one's called Akatsuki." _

Lelouch blinked, looking directly at it. It looked back, intelligence gleaming behind a layer of apathy. _"Are there any other dangerous beasts that I should be aware of?" _

The fae blinked. _"Not particularly." _

The next question was framed innocently enough. _"What is Commander Tohdoh doing now, then?"_

The kennel keeper chewed on his lip. _"I don't know, man. I think he's talking to the Aes Sidhe." _

"_Aes Sidhe?" _

"_Yeah. You know. They're kinda like nobility. High rank, better than us- literally." _

Lelouch nodded. It seemed that Britannian research into fae culture had been very, very deficient. _"I see. Do you know if I could ask him something?"_ Like why he'd been forced into meeting Suzaku, for instance, and why he'd been spirited away immediately afterwards.

The kennel keeper- Tamaki?- shrugged. _"I don't think that's wise. Anyways, wanna drink, buddy?" _

"_When did I become your buddy?"_ Lelouch blinked. This fae was _weird._ _"And no, thank you." _

Tamaki shrugged, pulling out a jar of something rankly fermented. It reminded Lelouch of the various types of homemade liquor he had come across back when he still lived in Britannia. _"Suit yourself." _

Thirty minutes later Tamaki was unconscious, and Lelouch made his way out of the complex, shuddering at the memory of a drunk Tamaki. Apparently, not all fae were artistic. At all. Especially in singing obscene drinking songs.

Use of any type of magic or Geass would alert whoever had set the coercions on him- once he started the spell he'd have only a half-hour at the most. He wanted to be outside for this; the kennels had stunk, and for some reason he felt more at ease under the stars.

Taking a deep breath, he fell into trance and stepped _out_ of his body, connecting his spirit to it by a mere thread of consciousness. After he'd first found out he could do this- was it really only a few nights ago, after he'd seen Suzaku again? It had taken a few surreptitious tries before he figured out how to do it consciously; after that it had been an amazingly easy concept to master, or perhaps his practice with Tohdoh had simply made it easier.

In his intangible form, he wasn't limited to normal modes of travel, or even folding time-space. It took a thought before he was staring at a sleeping Suzaku, his friend looking as if he'd decided to roll down a mountain naked, and another before he was inside what was obviously Suzaku's dream world.

_WHAT THE?!_

Lelouch threw himself violently out of the dream, blushing furiously. Okay, so he'd known that the Knight of Seven valued him a lot. He hadn't known _this._

Back to business. So, the Knight of Seven's feelings for him were more than platonic. That was okay. He could deal with that later, after Tohdoh punished him. Yes, it was okay. He wasn't bothered by it, he just had to deliver his message. For now, he had to get Suzaku to understand one thing, and one thing only. It had nothing to do with his feelings for Lelouch.

With only the slightest bit of trepidation, he dove back into Suzaku's dream. Luckily, it had toned down now. It was only rather less disturbing to be lying in bed naked, being cuddled by his self-proclaimed best friend.

"Suzaku, listen to me...."

~`*'~

Tohdoh stared down at the unresponsive body, wondering just how he could have made the mistake. Sure, Tamaki was an idiot, but even he should have known not to get roaring drunk when guarding someone like the former Knight of Two.

"_Damn,"_ he cursed softly. Even Lady Nunnally couldn't track him down, as far away as his spirit was. He should have known- Marianne had been mother to both, had been Aes Sidhe just as the Lady Nunnally now led this community, and dreamwalking was a gender-neutral skill.

It was dangerous, though- the farther away the spirit, and the longer it was gone, the more threat of death to the body or of loss of mental capacity of one way or another. By the Lady's own estimate, the former Knight had been gone over twenty minutes, well past the safe threshold. And since the Lady couldn't find him, he was probably in the dreams of someone farther away.

"_If he doesn't come back soon, he runs the risk of being trapped and assimilated,"_ the Lady warned. _"I will have no choice but to go and bring him back if this continues." _

Tohdoh shook his head. _"We can't risk showing him your existence yet, my Lady." _

"_And nothing would be more devastating than his loss." _

"_Except his falling into our enemies' hands." _He'd rather the brat be lost to the recesses of someone's mind than be used as a tool against the Sidhe.

Nunnally smiled. _"He is incorruptible."_ Her head tilted, as if seeing something behind her closed lids that he could not. _"I will go now, then. He will wake up in a few minutes, and hopefully with minimum damage." _

~`*'~

Suzaku woke up with a gasp, tangled in his sheets. He smelled flowers, something lightly sweet with a bitter undertone, and there was more than just sweat in the fluids soaking his sheets, but that wasn't the reason for his shock.

_I love you, Suzaku. If you love me back, then stay away from me, tell the others to forget about me. If you hunt me down I swear I'll make you wish you'd never come. From now on, we are no longer coworkers. _

What had that been about? Suzaku was never abandoning his friend, Sidhe-influenced or not. Actually, Lelouch had given him the name of the place he'd been kept- Narita, known on Britannian maps as Tara.

Narita was one of the main fae cities that Britannia had knowledge of, a stronghold attracting the fae scattered throughout the endless forest. It would fit in with the odd fae migrating patterns he'd noticed earlier.

Suzaku frowned; if this was truly the result of a prescient dream, then would the ability to dream such have come from him, or an outside source perhaps looking for an ambush? Or, perhaps, his mind reminded him, it really had been Lelouch.

That was just silly. Lelouch was a prince, a blueblood whose lineage could be traced back over a millennium and was undoubtedly human. Suzaku had been found in a gutter in a border town- it was likely Suzaku's fault, not Lelouch's. Had he dragged Lelouch into his dream by accident?

Waking dreams. Suzaku sighed and fell back asleep. He'd deal with this in the morning, with his friends, when he was fully awake and his complete faculties were running.

He was out like a light again.

~`*'~

Tohdoh watched the brat wake up, moaning. Overhead, the stars were beginning to give way to false dawn, and a cool breeze scented with oleander and kennel smells alike blew intermittently. Well, it served him right, the stupid brat.

"_You idiot. It's your fault your head hurts. Get over it." _

"_What? Wh-where am I?"_ Purple eyes stared accusingly at him. _"What just happened?" _

Tohdoh frowned. _"You do not remember?" _

"_Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" _Tohdoh frowned as the brat curled up into a ball, clutching the sides of his head and screaming. _"SHUT UP!" _A simple ripple later and they were inside the brat's shielded room.

He didn't stop screaming, however, and Tohdoh was neither dreaming nor projecting. _What is going on?_

A soft giggle caught his attention. It was soft, sweet, innocent, and utterly, completely mad. Those same violet eyes stared at him, no recognition or higher mental functions present in their depths.

And then he realized it; _that brat must have partially assimilated into whoever's dream, only he was able to win free or didn't realize what had happened to him, and now there's a third personality residing in that mind, and likely one that the Lady Marianne can't affect. _

Shit.

~`*'~

Cu Sidhe- (coo-shee) also more commonly (and more correctly?) known as the Cu Sith. Faerie dog of Scottish/Irish mythology, once believed that its presence heralded death. Likely the basis of Ms. Rowling's Grim.

Oleander- It's a plant that does well in semi-arid areas, smells nice, and will kill you if you're not careful. It's very popular as a garden plant where I live.

Hartford- It's really a place in Connecticut. Never been there, probably never will. It's a continent away.

Denkin and Deneve- Yes, they're dead. I hate OC's. It's why I still write fanfiction.

PS. Tell me if you see plot holes/plot contradictions.


End file.
